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CHAPTER XXXIII
THE GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED

The Acadians swept towards the bay, but their governor was not with them. La Salle had gone alone over the cliffs, along the way which Onawa had revealed, and he went not unseen. The Kentishman followed, searching out each footprint in the snow. Once again the priest was destined to take up the sword, before assuming the mantle of spiritual power. As he passed among the pines the loneliness of the place began to make him fear, and when he stopped with a curse, because he knew not which way to turn, he seemed to behold the sword of his dream flashing like lightning between the mitre and himself. And while halting he heard perplexing shouts, lessening, receding, and growing faint, as his men rushed down upon their foes.

Hearing those shouts Upcliff looked up from the field of ice, and his heart for an instant ceased when he saw that the enemy had gained the pass.

"Now, men of Somerset," he shouted, "let our bird fly right soon, or we shall never sight England again."

"We can do no more than our best, captain," growled the sailor Jacob Sadgrove. "My arms are near dead with work."

"Out!" cried Madeleine, sweeping forward. "Out, and make room for a woman."

She caught up the axe which the grumbler had dropped, and, lifting her brave arms, attacked the barrier of ice with never a thought of fear, until the sailor returned glumly to his work for shame.

"Only a few more yards," the deceiving girl cried, throwing back her flushed face. "Look not behind. To regard work closely is to fear it. Attack boldly, and it is done. See how the ship struggles to be free! Soon we shall fly through the open water, with the wind in our sails. Then shall you rest, and it shall delight you to remember the work."

So she called, laughing and singing at intervals, and running here and there to encourage the toilers, a faithful angel of hope, while the axes rang more strongly and the men cast side-glances towards the foe and swore breathlessly at their impotence.

"Get you aboard, lass," said Upcliff, loosening his cutlass. "Here is work for men. My lads, we shall make a good fight for country and faith, and die, if God will, like true men facing odds. Now we are taken on both sides."

He pointed to the north-west. Out of the gloom of dawn and the fog-wreaths, which ever haunt the Nova Scotian banks, sailed a full-rigged man-of-war beating against the breeze. It was the provision ship making for the settlement now that the helmsman could see to steer between the rocks.

"Nothing but a miracle can serve," quoth the skipper. "And the age of miracles is past."

"Have but faith, and the miracle shall yet be wrought," cried Madeleine, her magnificent confidence strong within her, even in that hour when a less bold spirit would have seen the doors of a heretic's prison reopening. "God shall yet make a way for us to escape. I know we are not doomed. Help me, captain, and you sailors, with your faith. We are never to be taken. We are to escape from our enemies, and God shall give to us the victory."

Upcliff smiled sadly as he gazed at the radiant face of the prophetess, shaking his grizzled head as he muttered:

"May the good Lord bless you, girl. You send us forth strong to fight."

Then again he faced his men and formed them in line; and when they stood ready to receive the enemy, every man his cutlass in hand, the master cried out strongly:

"Let no man surrender. For such the French have a gallows. Lads, we shall, by God's grace, leave a deep mark on yonder little army before the ship comes nigh. See you how slowly she labours down? She can scarce make headway against the tide, and the breeze freshens every minute. Now for a bold stand, a stern struggle, and may the Lord have mercy on us all."

Stout Somerset throats answered him with a cheer. They had exercised their privilege of grumbling over the uncongenial work of cutting a way for their ship through the ice-field while their compatriots fought upon the cliffs; but not a man drew back from the prospect of that hopeless battle.

The Acadians struggled down the long hill, floundering in the soft snow, and, halting upon the flat, drew up in the form of a crescent. There were signs of unwillingness among the settlers, due in part to the reputation gained in those days by Englishmen of never shrinking from a struggle to the death. They were also perturbed by the absence of La Salle, whom they had not seen since Woodfield had been overwhelmed and left for dead in the defile.

While the French thus hesitated, Upcliff and his impetuous men were for advancing to the attack; but Madeleine came before them, and in a strained voice, altogether unlike her usual tones, implored the skipper not to move towards the shore.

"Do not leave the ice," she cried. "I charge you go not beyond the ice."

"The maid has surely lost her wits," muttered Upcliff.

"See the eyes of her!" whispered Jacob Sadgrove to his nearest companion. "Have seen a horse look so, when he knows of somewhat coming, and would speak of it if he might."

A roar broke the morning fog. The ship had fired to encourage her allies. The ball splashed into the black water far from the gallant Dartmouth, which quivered and shook her sails in furious helplessness.

"Swear to me that you will not leave the ice-field," cried Madeleine.

"Ay, if you wish it," said Upcliff; adding bluntly: "May die as well here as yonder. Stand together, lads. They come!"

"Oh, why so long?" prayed Madeleine, bending upon the snow. "It is time for the miracle. I know we are to be saved, but it is terrible to wait. I know that not a hair upon the head of any of these men shall be harmed; but they know it not, and they prepare for death because they cannot see. Oh, God, send us now the miracle!"

"Stand firm!" shouted Upcliff. "Let them make the charge, and we shall smite them as they stumble in the snow."

He spoke, and straightway a mighty report rang along the shore. The ice on which the men planted their resolute feet quivered and heaved. The attackers halted and drew back; the attacked stared at one another in superstitious wonderment. No smoke drifted behind. The guns upon the ship had not spoken. But the echoes of that dry, sharp sound still crashed among the cliffs.

Madeleine rose, and sent her rapturous voice singing into the ears of all: "The miracle! The miracle!"

Already a channel of black water frothed and bubbled between the English sailors and the French settlers, a channel which widened each moment, as the ice-floe which the change of temperature had parted so suddenly from the shore drifted seawards, drawn out by the strong gulf current, bearing the men snatched from death, the little ice-locked ship, and the girl who had trusted so firmly and so well.

They flocked round her, the rough sailors, crying like children, and knelt to kiss her hands.

"To work!" she cried, pointing to the silver strip which held the floe united.

But before the men could again use their axes the strain told. The ice cracked again and the field was divided into two parts. There was a momentary danger lest the brigantine should be crushed between the floes, but this peril was averted by the regularity of the current. The men swung themselves aboard, lifting Madeleine up the ladder of ropes and so upon deck. The enemy already had become grotesque black spots upon the shore.

"Clear the decks for battle!" the captain thundered as the little ship ran free of the ice.

The Frenchman had altered her course, and was bearing down upon the Dartmouth, roaring with all her guns.

CHAPTER XXXIV
THE THIRST

Onawa, daughter of Shuswap, vagrant and traitress, she who had brought disaster upon her own people, continued to reap the reward of all her constancy to the enemy of her race. Famished and parched, she sank into a bed of snow, and rested her wildly throbbing head against a frosted tree. She had not eaten for many hours, her shelter was more than a league away, and her strength was gone. Her reward also was a maddening thirst.

After tracking down the Englishmen, watching them in the fall of the snow, enduring every privation until she had learnt their strength, she had gone at full speed to the settlement, madly hoping even then that La Salle might look on her with favour, despite her branded cheeks and mutilated face. His reward was to give her over to the soldiers, who had mocked her because she was of the hated race, a savage in their eyes, and had bound her with a rope and scourged her with the end of it, and had even struck her with their fists when she halted from exhaustion, and would have stabbed her to death had she refused to obey. Thus she received her full reward. And now she could do no more.

Neuralgic pains coursed through her head, until the weight of her hair became a torment. Feverishly she sucked a handful of snow, but the awful thirst remained unquenched. The sounds of the chase entered her ears dimly from that half-lit region ahead, until drowsiness passed into her body, and her head dropped, and her eyes closed, and the sleep which moves imperceptibly into death came upon her. Her passionate heart lowered its beat, her pulses throbbed more sluggishly, as she drew close to the threshold which separates life and its object from the world of dreams. Her body collapsed, her head slid down; the soft snow sucked her in like quicksand.

A figure passed among the slim terebinth columns. Though the sleeper had brought down her father into dishonour, had betrayed her tribe, and called the shadow of death across the home of her kindred, her sister had not forgotten her. The figure approached, bent over the huddled shape, and shook it roughly back to life.

"Tuschota!" muttered the girl, as her eyes opened upon the immobile brown face.

"Rise," said the woman. "Lean on me, and I will take you to my hut."

"Leave me here," moaned Onawa. "I would lie until the great sleep comes."

"I am your sister. I may not leave you thus to die. Yonder food awaits you, and drink, and the warmth of burning logs."

She assisted Onawa to rise. The girl staggered and clung with dead hands. Together they passed down the slope, and so came to the cabin cunningly hidden amid snowy bush. A fire burnt redly, and hard by stood a stone vessel filled with rice-water. Towards this Onawa reached her hands, with the cry:

"I am tortured with thirst."

Without a word her sister gave her drink, and watched her while she gulped at the tepid liquor. Suddenly she put out her hand, and grasped the vessel, saying:

"See! I have meat ready for you."

Onawa partook of the food like a famished beast, and as strength returned the former love of life awoke, and she longed to go forth to renew the hopeless quest; but she felt her sister's eyes reading her thoughts, and presently she heard that sister's voice:

"It is good to live, Onawa."

She made no reply, but leaned forward, thrusting her hands against the scarlet wood.

"Even when son and husband are taken away, and the light fails, and all the ground is dark, it is still good to live," went on the voice. "Why the good God gives this love of life we may not know."

"Give me more drink," the girl panted.

"Our father shall soon pass into the spirit land," went on the stern woman, unheeding her request. "He is old, but 'tis not age that saps his strength. Honour has departed from him. He has lost the headship, and another fills his office."

Onawa stared sullenly into the leaping heart of the fire.

"As this life continues we find trouble. You have lost beauty, and I a son. We shall not regain that which we have lost. Sisters in blood we are, and sisters in unhappiness also."

"I have brought sorrow into your life," muttered Onawa, less in penitence than defiance.

"And shall do so again. This night you have brought the enemy of my people out from Acadie. There was a time when you betrayed my son into the hands of him who now spurns you from his side. That which is done cannot be undone, and God shall punish."

"Why, then, have you brought me here?" cried Onawa fiercely. "Why did you not leave me to perish, that you might be rid of me for ever?"

"Remember you not the words that I spoke to you in the grove? I bade you have in mind that in the time when you should hunger and thirst you might turn to me. I have not forgotten, though you turned against me when your heart followed its own longing.

"I grieved for your Richard."

"So the hunter grieves when he by mischance has slain the bear cub which has strayed. And so he avoids the mother if he loves his life."

At that moment there rang in her steady voice a threat. Onawa looked up and met a suffering brown face and large quiet eyes. There was no menace there, nothing but longing for the dead and charity for the living.

She pressed a hand upon her burning throat. "Give me drink," she gasped.

Her sister poured some of the rice-water into a smaller vessel. This she stirred gently with a stick, watching the ruined face of Onawa with the same patient eyes. Outside the hut a flight of snow birds whirred from side to side.

"When you have drunk you shall go forth," said Mary Iden deliberately. "You shall seek to aid my enemy when he strives to strike down my husband."

Onawa gave a cry. In wondering over her sister's forgiveness she had forgotten La Salle.

"They may already have met," she muttered.

A stern smile crossed her sister's face.

"Can you not hear?" she whispered. "Yet you say you love the white priest. I have heard this long while the noise of sword striking sword. I listen without fear, knowing that no man can conquer my husband when no treachery hangs behind. Can you not hear the sounds of the fight?"

"My ears burn," cried Onawa. "I hear only the cold wind passing among the pines."

"They fight!" exclaimed her sister triumphantly. "My Richard shall rest to-day."

"The water," gasped Onawa for the third time. "My throat is on fire."

"Drink and go forth."

Grasping the vessel in both hands, Onawa drained it to the dregs. Then, as her arms fell, and the taste in her mouth became exceeding bitter, and a strange exaltation visited her brain, and her body began to burn, and numbness came into her feet, she bent with one terrible groan, to hide her fear and her shame, and – if it were possible – her awful knowledge of the wolfsbane poisoning that draught, from the calm black eyes which stared at her across the fire.

"Aid whom you will," said the steady voice, which was scarce audible above the furious beatings of the listener's heart. "The day breaks."

A lifeless winter sun was struggling into the hut.

The pride of her race remained with Onawa to the end. She would not show fear, nor useless rage, in the presence of her sister. She would not confess what she knew, nor acknowledge that she had met with the punishment which she deserved and the laws of their race demanded. Passing into a sad beam of light, she drew herself erect and panted:

"I shall go forth."

"Go, sister," said the poisoner. "I too go forth, but we shall not walk together. For you the west and the forest, for me the south and the sea."

"I go among the pines."

"Farewell, sister."

"Farewell."

Erect and proud, Onawa passed out with her awful sorrow, through the opening morning, and so among the trees, still dignified and unbending because she knew those calm black eyes followed all her movements. On she went into the increasing gloom, until the snow carpet appeared to grow hot, and opalescent colours fringed the trees, and sounds of sleepy music hummed around her head. The red and green lights flashed up and down; solitude closed behind her; the pine-barrens were on fire. The world was gone.

CHAPTER XXXV
SWORDCRAFT

The path taken by La Salle ascended and brought him finally to the crest of a hill. Here a wood of storm-beaten pines stood motionless in the white calm of the long winter sleep. Between the dimly lighted trees spread a narrow scar of black earth, which had been protected from snow by the funereal boughs above. The spot was as silent and as sad as a burying-place. It seemed to the priest that the balsamic pines might have been planted to neutralise any noxious odours emanating from the ground. He shivered at the thought, turned to retrace his steps and find an outlet which might lead him to the shore; but straightway a restraint fell upon his feet, and a thrill raced through his body, when he perceived that the place whereon he walked was haunted ground.

Before him stood a figure, white-faced and worn, clad in ragged garments, a man to all outward seeming no more sentient than the pines, for he moved not at all, nor did he speak, nor make a sign. As though rooted and frozen, he stood across the way, showing life and feeling only in his eyes.

"By all the saints!" the priest muttered. "'Tis but a half-starved Englishman."

Then he shouted his ready challenge to the silent man, who passed immediately with swift movements to the strip of bare ground, and, halting within touch of his enemy, addressed him sternly in the Gallic tongue:

"That you may learn, Sir Priest, with whom you have to deal, know that before you stands Sir Thomas Iden, a squire of England and a knight of Kent, a man moreover who has sworn to fight you fairly to the death. Remember you that night on which you put to death a boy in the forest beside Couchicing? That boy was my son, my only child. Sir Priest, you and I have crossed swords before this day. I was then a better man than now; but, with the help of my God and the spirit of my child, I shall lay out your body in this lonely spot for the winds to howl upon, and leave your eyes open for the crows to peck at. I pray you answer only with your sword."

Hot words came to La Salle's tongue, but he did not utter them. He found himself daunted by the horror of the place and the unyielding attitude of the knight. As he brought up his renowned right arm, it shivered and the hand was cold. But so soon as their blades met, his fighting spirit arose and conquered the superstitious fear, and a fierce light shone again in his eyes, and the knowledge was borne back upon him that he was in truth the finest swordsman in the New World, and with that he shouted out, "Have at you, heretic dog!" and attacked with all his might.

Not a bird moved through the air, not an insect lived upon that hill top, not an animal passed that way. The two men had the gloomy wood to themselves. Not even a breath of wind passed to wave the pines, or scatter into motion last autumn's rusted leaves, which spotted with red the sable rent in the great white sheet which Nature had drawn across the ground. The rhythm of the swords rang monotonously, as the two weird figures drifted to and fro, from side to side of the dusky bluff, struggling the one against the other, with life as the winner's prize. Before the abbé spread his splendid career of power as a prince of the Church. He had but to emerge triumphant from this last taking of the sword to assume the dignity of his new office and realise the ambition of his heart. While the avenger saw neither priest, nor governor, nor fencer of renown, but merely a fellow-being who had extinguished the light of his young son's life.

So the momentous minutes passed. When the sound of quick and furious breathing began to pulsate around the hill, Mary Iden ascended from the hollow, after playing her part in the avenging of her son's death, and watched with bosom heaving rapidly every movement of her husband, sure in her faith that he was the strongest man alive. Yet she aided him with her counsel; and when the passion of the fight had entered also into her she cast contempt and hatred upon La Salle, and mocked his skill, though he was on that day the finer swordsman of the pair.

"Wait not, husband," she cried warningly. "He is more spent than you."

Sir Thomas heard and rushed out. La Salle, standing sideways, parried the thrust with a slight motion of his iron wrist, and, rounding, took up the attack, which ended in a feint and a lunge over the heart. His sword glanced under the knight's arm and the point struck a fir and was almost held.

"Perdition!" he muttered. "I must use greater caution."

For a few seconds the blades were dazzling as they darted together with the malignity and swiftness of serpents; then La Salle feigned to stumble, lowering his point as though he had lost his grip, an old trick he had often employed successfully, and as the knight leaped forward to take his opening, the priest recovered and sent the blade into his opponent's side. Life had never appeared to him so good as at that moment, but before his laugh had died the Englishman leaned forward, grasping the sword and holding it firmly in his side, lunged out, and ran the priest through the chest, after La Salle had saved his life by throwing up his arm and deflecting the point from his heart.

They fell apart, gulping the keen air for a taste of new life. The watcher advanced, her brown face ghastly, but her husband put out his hand and motioned her back.

"Away, Mary. There is life in me yet."

Unwillingly she retired, and a flush of pride crossed her face when her husband staggered across the snow, his eyes still clear and fierce. La Salle, no whit less dauntless, came up also and stood swaying like one of the trees behind.

"You are brave, Englishman, and a worthy foe," he gasped. "We have shed each other's blood. Let us now cry hold and part."

"There can be no truce between you and me," came the deep reply. "This fight is to the death."

"Life has its pleasures," urged La Salle.

"Of such you deprived my son."

"Your blood be upon your own head!"

Again their swords clashed. No signs of weakening yet upon either drawn face. The balance swayed neither to the one side nor to the other.

Again the watcher started out, appealing to her husband. It would be an easy matter to attack La Salle from the rear; to trip his foot with a stick; to blind him by a handful of snow. But the knight would not hear her; and even threatened when she made as though she would disobey.

The priest listened for the tramp of feet and the call of voices. He would then have called the meanest settler in Acadie his brother. Shoutings came to him from the bay, the roar of the ship's gun, and the splitting of the ice. He groaned and cursed the folly which had driven him into this snare.

Courage revived when he scored by a clever stroke; but again his triumph was short-lived. The knight answered by driving his point hard into the open side. Darkness dropped upon their eyes. They reeled like drunken men, fighting the air, feeling for each other, falling body to body, and pushing apart with a convulsive shudder.

"Where are you?" gasped the abbé.

"Here," moaned the Englishman, striking towards the voice.

"It is enough," said La Salle, the voice gurgling in his throat. "Flesh and blood can endure no more. Put up your sword."

"Only in your heart."

They held at each other with one hand while fighting with the other. A wound on one side was answered by a wound on the other. It appeared as though neither had another drop of blood to shed, not a muscle left unspent, nor a breath to come. The chill of the winter was in the soul of each, and it was also the chill of death. They crawled at each other like torn beasts, upon hands and knees.

"You are spent," pulsated La Salle.

"My sword has gone through you twice."

"Husband, bid me strike him," implored the watcher. "He is scarce able to lift his arm."

"Back, woman," panted the dying man.

Once more they stood upon their feet, and again their points were raised, but now against bodies which had lost all consciousness, save the ruling passion of ambition in the one and vengeance in the other.

"Down!" snarled the abbé, knowing not it was the last word which his tongue should utter; and, closing with his enemy, threw his remaining life into one lunge.

The sword left his hand for ever. By a glimmer of light through the red darkness he saw the body of the knight stretched black along that ghastly carpet; he saw the woman running forth with a great cry to raise it by the shoulders. Then night fell upon the victor as he stumbled on among the trees, with a small sane voice of consciousness singing in his departing soul: "You have fought your last fight. You shall win the red hat yet."

So he was found by his defeated soldiers, feeling his way from pine to pine, leaving in his wake two dotted lines more ruby-red than the cardinal's soutane. They bound up his wounds as best they could, and, raising him upon their shoulders, bore the dead weight of unconscious matter into Acadie.

At noon the ship came to the landing-stage. During the excitement which accompanied and followed her arrival even the governor became forgotten. A cadaverous priest was the first to step ashore, casting around him glances of intolerable pride. Others were quick to follow, and soon it became noised abroad that Roussilac was to be recalled and that Pope Urbano had need of La Salle the priest. Even such momentous matters were put aside by the settlers in their anxiety to hear tidings of home and friends.

In the meantime the pale-faced priest had set forth for the governor's abode, muttering imprecations upon the bitter country in which it had become his evil lot to settle.

"His Excellency?" he inquired shortly at the door; and the seneschal, awed by his morose manner, merely made a reverence and pointed as he said: "He lies within, Holiness."

More he would have said, but the nuncio passed on quickly and entered the room, holding forth a missive tied with scarlet thread, calling in a jealous voice:

"Your Excellency! A letter from Rome. A call for your return."

La Salle was lying along the bed. The messenger came nearer.

"Awake, your Excellency! His Holiness Pope Urbano sends to you – "

There the strange priest stopped at beholding a broken crucifix beneath the sleeper's right hand; and a sneering smile curved his lips, and he shrugged his thin shoulders, as he callously observed:

"Methinks his Holiness has sent in vain."